Touched
Commentary
Sometimes two hands aren't enough. One writer tells of the morning her son came in
from play begging for something to eat. They finally settled on a slice of bread smothered
in peanut butter. "But," she said, "you have to eat it outside."
He was only three. Most doors he could open by wrapping one hand around the knob and sort of dropping his body until turning and pulling became part of the same motion. The outside door was different, however. It needed two hands, and here was that slice of bread filling one. What to do?
His was a creative little mind. He slapped the bread against the wall, peanut butter first. It stuck while he grabbed at the knob with both hands. Once the door was open, he peeled it away from the wall, nearly good as new!
Our hands are amazing tools. The bones of our hands have thirty different joints, and movements are controlled by more than fifty muscles. Researchers estimate that a typical hand can assume approximately 300 million different useful positions while doing the average of 1,000 separate functions that we assign to it in a day. One-third of the sense organs of our bodies are located in our hands. John Webster called them "curious engines," and Immanuel Kant said they were "the outside brain of man."
Helen Keller, blind and deaf from early childhood, described the incredible sensation of "listening" with her hands. She told of the time when the cover was removed from phonograph speakers, and her hand was placed against the vibrating membrane itself. On the turntable was spinning a recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. "I could sense ... the passion of the rhythm, the pulsation and swell of music," she said. "And the great choir beat sharply against my fingers with its waves and pulses!" What a feeling!
Pianist Sergey Rachmaninoff was in the middle of a concert tour when he took ill and doctors found cancer. Rachmaninoff knew he was dying. He held up his hands, those marvelous producers of magnificent music, and he said, "My dear hands. Farewell, my poor hands."
What would we do without hands? I think of that as I type these words. Latham Sholes, who first put together a working model of the typewriter in the mid-1800s, found that the keys would jam if the typist went too fast. So he deliberately concocted a configuration for the keys that would slow us down. It's the standard keyboard on all English typewriters and computer keyboards, an arrangement called QWERTY. And still our fingers learn, and our hands produce.
Our hands speak. The grasp of friendship. The touch of healing. The caress of love. Our hands create. John Heming said of Shakespeare, "His mind and hand went together." What a productive combination! And who can fail to be amazed at the wonders that leaped from the hands of Michelangelo?
Our hands can destroy as well. Pilate washed his hands of Jesus' blood, but pointed the way to his death. Lady Macbeth couldn't cleanse her hands of murderous designs with all the water of earth's oceans. And poet, Dylan Thomas, speaks in ghastly wonder of "the hand that signed the paper," "five sovereign fingers" that condemned a society to death.
But most of all, our hands pray. From the depths of our sorrow, from the tragedy of our circumstances, we lift our hands toward heaven. When the voice is gone, when the eyes grow dim, when the tongue thickens, our hands still speak. Lifted hands. Pleading hands. Needy hands. And always, as our lectionary readings for today note, five fingers of love, scarred by the print of nails, grasp us in the never-failing handshake of grace.
Jeremiah 1:4-10
In Parker Palmer's book, Let Your Life Speak, he explores vocation in its most authentic sense -- listening for the voice of God that echoes through our lives. There are a number of strange and wonderful divine callings in scripture -- Moses at Horeb's burning bush, Matthew at the customs booth in Capernaum, Nicodemus up the tree in Jericho, Paul on the road to Damascus -- but there is none quite so captivating as Jeremiah's marvelous word of witness in the first chapter of his prophecies. Before he was born, the word of God informed Jeremiah in one of his mystical trances, the divine finger had touched his spirit and called him to prophesy. The calling was painful and the outcome virtually destroyed this man of lament, but to have ignored this speech of his life would have been more disastrous. The hand of God was upon him.
About 200 years after Jeremiah lived and lamented, the Greek philosopher Aristotle began a lecture by saying that if he carefully observed a person walking, he could tell something essential about that person's character. Aristotle insisted that the direction of one's gaze was tied to one's perspective on life. The person who looks downward most of the time is caught up with the past. His or her identity rests largely on tradition or past performance or the norms set down by previous generations.
The person who looks straight ahead was Aristotle's favorite. He said that person has a balanced view of things, able to take in the short vision as well as the panorama of the sky and horizon. This person, according to Aristotle, lives in the present fully, while being shaped by both past and future.
And then there is the dreamer, the visionary, the prophet. Aristotle didn't see much of a present life for those who only gaze toward the sky as they walk. Still, there is something deeply wonderful about these who live with their minds in the clouds and beyond, and their presence is truly necessary for the rest of society. They may not be fully in touch with this world, but they have the uncanny ability to interpret all the grays of life under the spellbinding brilliance of future resolution. They tell fairy tales. They speak in parables. They use the language of heaven and of prophecy. Jeremiah walked in their company. In fact, he was born a prophet. His heart resonated with divine language before ever he learned Hebrew.
Fifth-century BC Roman historian, Heroditus, told an interesting story that resonates a bit with this calling of Jeremiah. The Egyptians always prided themselves on being the oldest civilization on the earth. However, when Psammetichus became their king in about 660 BC, he decided that this assumption wasn't enough. He set out to prove "scientifically," which race on earth was the most ancient.
He took two newborn children of ordinary parentage and gave them to a shepherd who grazed his sheep in a lonely area. He charged the shepherd and his family to keep the children in an isolated dwelling, to care for their physical needs, and to guard them from harm. But, he said, never allow a single word of any speech or language to be uttered within the range of their hearing.
Whatever language came naturally to them would obviously be the original language of humankind and thus would serve as a record of the antiquity of the founding people on earth. So it went for two years. Then one morning, as the shepherd entered the dwelling of the youngsters, they grabbed his legs and stretched out their arms in delight and cried out the word bekos.
Knowing the gravity of the situation, the shepherd neither responded orally nor reported this incident until it had recurred several times. King Psammetichus immediately went to hear the children and their "native" speech. He called in his linguists, demanding from them the source of the word bekos. When they found a group among the Phrygians who used that term for bread, Psammetichus and the noble Egyptians had to concede that their race was derived from older stock. (And if Heroditus is correct, political games entered the picture at that point, and Psammetichus instituted a cover-up of "Watergate" proportions!)
I've thought often about that experiment over the years, especially as a father watching three daughters grow and develop. Who are these young beauties, anyway? Yes, their mother and I are in them; certainly in their rawest moments the worst of us oozes out! But who are they inside? Where did they come from? How can they be living creatures, so unique, so complex, so wonderful? What would they be like if we were not their parents? If they were bred in isolation from our genetic material, would they still be the people we've grown to know in part and to love in unbounded measure? Who are they? For that matter, who am I? How did I come to be the person I am?
Many years ago, Dr. Peter Eldersveld was the preacher for a radio ministry. In a sermon on Acts 16, he said that most of us, like the Philippian jailor, are self-made people. At least that's how we like to think of ourselves: self-made, self-directed, self-sustaining. Even our Christian testimonies hint in that direction. He told about some of his friends who delight in telling how, after years of destructive living, they came to know God and were turned round, and then made new commitments of service.
Then they politely look to him and ask about his "personal testimony." He always felt like a second-rate Christian, he said, because he had no amazing before-and-after stories to spread. In fact, his whole testimony could be summarized in a single rather "boring" statement: "I have never known a day in all my life when I could not believe that I was a child of God."
But as he reflected further, he came to realize that this simple statement was really an earth-shaking confession. Is it possible that from the time a child draws its first breath it could belong to God, be part of the family and community of God, and be found in the loving care of God? Is it possible that the first language a youngster could speak would be the language of faith, and the dialect of divine love? What a testimony that is! And it was the credo precisely at the heart of Jeremiah's self-awareness. It also lives in some measure in all God's children who know the old hymn, "I Sought The Lord."
I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew
He moved my soul to seek him, seeking me.
It was not I that found, O Savior true;
No I was found of thee.
I find, I walk, I love, but oh, the whole
Of love is my answer, Lord, to thee!
For thou wert long beforehand with my soul;
Always, thou lovedst me!
Hebrews 12:18-29
We don't know who wrote this sermonic letter because the author was so familiar to his readers that he did not feel the need to sign it. Speculation over the centuries has placed it under the pen of Paul or Luke or Silas or Barnabas or Apollos or even Priscilla and Aquila. Although this mystery is not likely to be solved until eternity, it is really not as important as the quest for the original readers and their context.
Although it may seem straightforward to us to think of these people as Jewish Christians living in Palestine (so the title "To the Hebrews"), serious deductive analysis of the little clues within the document have led to quite different conclusions. First, the readers seem to be converts to Christianity from an original non-Jewish background (6:1-6), which would be unusual if they were in Palestine. Second, the scriptural quotations are mostly from the Septuagint, and the document appears to have been written by a very educated person in excellent classical Greek, both of which would not fit with a congregation whose primary language was Aramaic.
Third, the reference to "those from Italy" in the final line is ambiguous: It might mean that the author was in Rome while writing, or it might indicate that the readers were in Rome and the author was in the company of former members of the congregation who were sending greetings back to the group in Rome. Fourth, the readers were obviously part of a conservative and devout group of Jewish practitioners before they believed in Christ, and were now thinking seriously of returning to those cultic rituals rather than retaining their broader post-Jerusalem council (Acts 15) freedoms. This has led many recent interpreters to suggest that the addressees were folks who had been Gentile converts to Judaism, attracted initially by the moral rigors of practicing Jews. After going through a period of proselyte instruction, these newly inducted children of Abraham would have been among the most persistent and consistent in adhering to the rituals of cultic ceremonies.
This may help explain some of the underlying historical script that peeks through at times. There has been a previous persecution in which some property was confiscated, some were jailed, and the leaders of the community were executed (ch. 10). Now, after a period of respite, another official attack is looming (ch. 12), and these addressees were thinking of slipping away from the Christian community and back into the Jewish cultic fold. This may suggest that the former persecution was the expulsion of the Jews from Rome by Claudius (48 AD), an event that was precipitated, according to the Roman historian Tacitus, by Jewish riots arguing over someone he called "Chrestus." Furthermore, the anticipated agitation might well envisage Nero's new pogroms that were just getting started. In the earlier events there was no distinction by Roman rulers between Jews who believed Jesus was the Messiah and those who did not. Now, however, that separation was being articulated. For this reason it would be advantageous to Jewish proselytes who had become believers in Jesus to slip back into the non- messianic Jewish community in order to avoid persecution and possible death.
All of this supports the allegorical scene declared in today's lectionary passage. When the Israelites approached Mount Sinai (Exodus 19) in order to meet God face to face, it was a fearful encounter that threatened death for disobedience. The new community of this Jesus-age, however, is transported into the very presence of God in heaven amid angelic praises, touching the holy things with joy rather than apprehension. Why would someone wish to live in the former fear (vv. 18-21) when the latter delight was available (vv. 22- 24)? This appears to be the primary challenge thrust forward by today's passage. It can be re-issued to every Christian group by tapping into the spiritual obsessions that drive people to ritualistic behaviors out of superstitious fears when the great freedom of life in the forgiving presence of God is available through Jesus.
Luke 13:10-17
Over the entrance of the famed Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City is this inscription: "For of the Most High cometh healing." Nice words, but one wonders how they temper the minds of those who walk beneath them. Today's gospel reading shows Jesus probing the mystery of unbelief in the face of divine healing with those who witnessed his explicit miraculous touch.
Healing is a strange thing. The most obvious wounds and sores are not necessarily the most deadly. Even where doctors attack the traumas of the flesh, they often say that no true healing can take place until the mind and spirit and soul desire restoration. Thomas Moore's well-known hymn reflects that thought:
Come, you disconsolate, where'er you languish;
come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel.
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;
earth has no sorrows that heaven cannot heal.
"Gypsy Smith," a widely touted evangelist earlier last century, preached a powerful sermon on healing based on an incident from his own childhood. His people worked the fields of hops near Tunbridge, England. One day, a force of fifty people finished one section and boarded a horse-drawn wagon for transport to the next site. The wagon overflowed with people singing and laughing. But as they crossed a flooding stream on an old wooden bridge, a woman's sudden scream spooked the horses. When the wagon crashed against the side of the bridge, everyone was thrown into the raging waters. A young boy caught hold of a horse and then reached for his drowning mother's hand. Their arms flailed desperately, but the currents pulled her away to death.
At the mass funeral for 39 victims, crowds gathered in humbling numbers. Over the drone of words of mourning and hope, the boy who had lost his mother crawled into the gaping grave, hugged her casket and cried: "Mother, Mother! I tried to save you! I did all a man could do to save you, but you would not let me."
Gypsy Smith called his sermon "The Savior of All" and told how another Son reaches with hands of mercy for others who are drowning, and he does not let them down. This is the impact of Jesus' healing in today's passage. But, like the chiseled inscription over the New York hospital, it can be ignored or misunderstood or denied. And that is where the real test of divine medicine and human need intersect.
Application
They should not be used often, but every now and again sentimental poems like Myra Brooks Welch's The Touch of the Master's Hand can be very effective. It creates a picture and sets a mood, and often connects with a particular moment in each life when there was a clear and strong sense of the divine touch.
Alternative Application
Jeremiah 1:4-10. Both Jeremiah's calling and the unique healing of the woman in the gospel story can seem quite distant to the average person in our services today. But the story behind Hebrews and the images presented in the epistle reading are directly applicatory to every community in virtually every time. It might be well to focus more extensively on that passage, and then develop a Joshua-like covenant renewal challenge (see Joshua 24) with which to conclude the message.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 71:1-6
Martin Luther wrote it. Many have sung it lustily on Sunday morning. "A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing!" Conjuring up God in this militaristic fashion gives some people pause. They see a fort bristling with weaponry and with armed soldiers at the ready. But this is not a fort in the sense that we may wish to use it for attack. It is a fort in the sense of a place of safety. "A rock of refuge."
It is a powerful thing indeed to conjure up images of a God who is a location of safety, a sanctuary for body and spirit. And for many this vision of God is operative. But perhaps it wouldn't hurt to take this understanding of the holy and see if it might go a little further. What would happen if the idea of refuge, of safety, of sanctuary was applied to the communities that are founded and built to worship and honor this God?
What if our local church communities were a "rock of refuge"? What if every church community committed itself to a Trinitarian concept of sanctuary?
This tripartite formula would first include the church as sanctuary for the spirit. In this sense, our communities would be a safe place for people to become spiritually vulnerable so that they might stretch and grow into discipleship. The second sense of sanctuary would involve church as sanctuary for the heart. In this portion of our formula, people would be safe from criticism and ridicule; safe from wagging tongues and angry spirits. The last piece of this new Holy Trinity would be the notion of church as a sanctuary for the body. This means that the church pledges to keep people physically safe: no physical harm or abuse of any kind.
Such a fortress would be novel in society. There aren't very many places where people are safe in spirit, safe in their hearts, and physically safe all at the same time. Perhaps a beginning could be had in local churches. A covenant of sanctuary could be designed that would commit everyone in the church community to conduct themselves in a manner that would keep everyone safe.
Then, not only could we view our God as a safe haven, a rock, and a refuge, we could also create such safety within the folds of the communities that God has called us to build together.
He was only three. Most doors he could open by wrapping one hand around the knob and sort of dropping his body until turning and pulling became part of the same motion. The outside door was different, however. It needed two hands, and here was that slice of bread filling one. What to do?
His was a creative little mind. He slapped the bread against the wall, peanut butter first. It stuck while he grabbed at the knob with both hands. Once the door was open, he peeled it away from the wall, nearly good as new!
Our hands are amazing tools. The bones of our hands have thirty different joints, and movements are controlled by more than fifty muscles. Researchers estimate that a typical hand can assume approximately 300 million different useful positions while doing the average of 1,000 separate functions that we assign to it in a day. One-third of the sense organs of our bodies are located in our hands. John Webster called them "curious engines," and Immanuel Kant said they were "the outside brain of man."
Helen Keller, blind and deaf from early childhood, described the incredible sensation of "listening" with her hands. She told of the time when the cover was removed from phonograph speakers, and her hand was placed against the vibrating membrane itself. On the turntable was spinning a recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. "I could sense ... the passion of the rhythm, the pulsation and swell of music," she said. "And the great choir beat sharply against my fingers with its waves and pulses!" What a feeling!
Pianist Sergey Rachmaninoff was in the middle of a concert tour when he took ill and doctors found cancer. Rachmaninoff knew he was dying. He held up his hands, those marvelous producers of magnificent music, and he said, "My dear hands. Farewell, my poor hands."
What would we do without hands? I think of that as I type these words. Latham Sholes, who first put together a working model of the typewriter in the mid-1800s, found that the keys would jam if the typist went too fast. So he deliberately concocted a configuration for the keys that would slow us down. It's the standard keyboard on all English typewriters and computer keyboards, an arrangement called QWERTY. And still our fingers learn, and our hands produce.
Our hands speak. The grasp of friendship. The touch of healing. The caress of love. Our hands create. John Heming said of Shakespeare, "His mind and hand went together." What a productive combination! And who can fail to be amazed at the wonders that leaped from the hands of Michelangelo?
Our hands can destroy as well. Pilate washed his hands of Jesus' blood, but pointed the way to his death. Lady Macbeth couldn't cleanse her hands of murderous designs with all the water of earth's oceans. And poet, Dylan Thomas, speaks in ghastly wonder of "the hand that signed the paper," "five sovereign fingers" that condemned a society to death.
But most of all, our hands pray. From the depths of our sorrow, from the tragedy of our circumstances, we lift our hands toward heaven. When the voice is gone, when the eyes grow dim, when the tongue thickens, our hands still speak. Lifted hands. Pleading hands. Needy hands. And always, as our lectionary readings for today note, five fingers of love, scarred by the print of nails, grasp us in the never-failing handshake of grace.
Jeremiah 1:4-10
In Parker Palmer's book, Let Your Life Speak, he explores vocation in its most authentic sense -- listening for the voice of God that echoes through our lives. There are a number of strange and wonderful divine callings in scripture -- Moses at Horeb's burning bush, Matthew at the customs booth in Capernaum, Nicodemus up the tree in Jericho, Paul on the road to Damascus -- but there is none quite so captivating as Jeremiah's marvelous word of witness in the first chapter of his prophecies. Before he was born, the word of God informed Jeremiah in one of his mystical trances, the divine finger had touched his spirit and called him to prophesy. The calling was painful and the outcome virtually destroyed this man of lament, but to have ignored this speech of his life would have been more disastrous. The hand of God was upon him.
About 200 years after Jeremiah lived and lamented, the Greek philosopher Aristotle began a lecture by saying that if he carefully observed a person walking, he could tell something essential about that person's character. Aristotle insisted that the direction of one's gaze was tied to one's perspective on life. The person who looks downward most of the time is caught up with the past. His or her identity rests largely on tradition or past performance or the norms set down by previous generations.
The person who looks straight ahead was Aristotle's favorite. He said that person has a balanced view of things, able to take in the short vision as well as the panorama of the sky and horizon. This person, according to Aristotle, lives in the present fully, while being shaped by both past and future.
And then there is the dreamer, the visionary, the prophet. Aristotle didn't see much of a present life for those who only gaze toward the sky as they walk. Still, there is something deeply wonderful about these who live with their minds in the clouds and beyond, and their presence is truly necessary for the rest of society. They may not be fully in touch with this world, but they have the uncanny ability to interpret all the grays of life under the spellbinding brilliance of future resolution. They tell fairy tales. They speak in parables. They use the language of heaven and of prophecy. Jeremiah walked in their company. In fact, he was born a prophet. His heart resonated with divine language before ever he learned Hebrew.
Fifth-century BC Roman historian, Heroditus, told an interesting story that resonates a bit with this calling of Jeremiah. The Egyptians always prided themselves on being the oldest civilization on the earth. However, when Psammetichus became their king in about 660 BC, he decided that this assumption wasn't enough. He set out to prove "scientifically," which race on earth was the most ancient.
He took two newborn children of ordinary parentage and gave them to a shepherd who grazed his sheep in a lonely area. He charged the shepherd and his family to keep the children in an isolated dwelling, to care for their physical needs, and to guard them from harm. But, he said, never allow a single word of any speech or language to be uttered within the range of their hearing.
Whatever language came naturally to them would obviously be the original language of humankind and thus would serve as a record of the antiquity of the founding people on earth. So it went for two years. Then one morning, as the shepherd entered the dwelling of the youngsters, they grabbed his legs and stretched out their arms in delight and cried out the word bekos.
Knowing the gravity of the situation, the shepherd neither responded orally nor reported this incident until it had recurred several times. King Psammetichus immediately went to hear the children and their "native" speech. He called in his linguists, demanding from them the source of the word bekos. When they found a group among the Phrygians who used that term for bread, Psammetichus and the noble Egyptians had to concede that their race was derived from older stock. (And if Heroditus is correct, political games entered the picture at that point, and Psammetichus instituted a cover-up of "Watergate" proportions!)
I've thought often about that experiment over the years, especially as a father watching three daughters grow and develop. Who are these young beauties, anyway? Yes, their mother and I are in them; certainly in their rawest moments the worst of us oozes out! But who are they inside? Where did they come from? How can they be living creatures, so unique, so complex, so wonderful? What would they be like if we were not their parents? If they were bred in isolation from our genetic material, would they still be the people we've grown to know in part and to love in unbounded measure? Who are they? For that matter, who am I? How did I come to be the person I am?
Many years ago, Dr. Peter Eldersveld was the preacher for a radio ministry. In a sermon on Acts 16, he said that most of us, like the Philippian jailor, are self-made people. At least that's how we like to think of ourselves: self-made, self-directed, self-sustaining. Even our Christian testimonies hint in that direction. He told about some of his friends who delight in telling how, after years of destructive living, they came to know God and were turned round, and then made new commitments of service.
Then they politely look to him and ask about his "personal testimony." He always felt like a second-rate Christian, he said, because he had no amazing before-and-after stories to spread. In fact, his whole testimony could be summarized in a single rather "boring" statement: "I have never known a day in all my life when I could not believe that I was a child of God."
But as he reflected further, he came to realize that this simple statement was really an earth-shaking confession. Is it possible that from the time a child draws its first breath it could belong to God, be part of the family and community of God, and be found in the loving care of God? Is it possible that the first language a youngster could speak would be the language of faith, and the dialect of divine love? What a testimony that is! And it was the credo precisely at the heart of Jeremiah's self-awareness. It also lives in some measure in all God's children who know the old hymn, "I Sought The Lord."
I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew
He moved my soul to seek him, seeking me.
It was not I that found, O Savior true;
No I was found of thee.
I find, I walk, I love, but oh, the whole
Of love is my answer, Lord, to thee!
For thou wert long beforehand with my soul;
Always, thou lovedst me!
Hebrews 12:18-29
We don't know who wrote this sermonic letter because the author was so familiar to his readers that he did not feel the need to sign it. Speculation over the centuries has placed it under the pen of Paul or Luke or Silas or Barnabas or Apollos or even Priscilla and Aquila. Although this mystery is not likely to be solved until eternity, it is really not as important as the quest for the original readers and their context.
Although it may seem straightforward to us to think of these people as Jewish Christians living in Palestine (so the title "To the Hebrews"), serious deductive analysis of the little clues within the document have led to quite different conclusions. First, the readers seem to be converts to Christianity from an original non-Jewish background (6:1-6), which would be unusual if they were in Palestine. Second, the scriptural quotations are mostly from the Septuagint, and the document appears to have been written by a very educated person in excellent classical Greek, both of which would not fit with a congregation whose primary language was Aramaic.
Third, the reference to "those from Italy" in the final line is ambiguous: It might mean that the author was in Rome while writing, or it might indicate that the readers were in Rome and the author was in the company of former members of the congregation who were sending greetings back to the group in Rome. Fourth, the readers were obviously part of a conservative and devout group of Jewish practitioners before they believed in Christ, and were now thinking seriously of returning to those cultic rituals rather than retaining their broader post-Jerusalem council (Acts 15) freedoms. This has led many recent interpreters to suggest that the addressees were folks who had been Gentile converts to Judaism, attracted initially by the moral rigors of practicing Jews. After going through a period of proselyte instruction, these newly inducted children of Abraham would have been among the most persistent and consistent in adhering to the rituals of cultic ceremonies.
This may help explain some of the underlying historical script that peeks through at times. There has been a previous persecution in which some property was confiscated, some were jailed, and the leaders of the community were executed (ch. 10). Now, after a period of respite, another official attack is looming (ch. 12), and these addressees were thinking of slipping away from the Christian community and back into the Jewish cultic fold. This may suggest that the former persecution was the expulsion of the Jews from Rome by Claudius (48 AD), an event that was precipitated, according to the Roman historian Tacitus, by Jewish riots arguing over someone he called "Chrestus." Furthermore, the anticipated agitation might well envisage Nero's new pogroms that were just getting started. In the earlier events there was no distinction by Roman rulers between Jews who believed Jesus was the Messiah and those who did not. Now, however, that separation was being articulated. For this reason it would be advantageous to Jewish proselytes who had become believers in Jesus to slip back into the non- messianic Jewish community in order to avoid persecution and possible death.
All of this supports the allegorical scene declared in today's lectionary passage. When the Israelites approached Mount Sinai (Exodus 19) in order to meet God face to face, it was a fearful encounter that threatened death for disobedience. The new community of this Jesus-age, however, is transported into the very presence of God in heaven amid angelic praises, touching the holy things with joy rather than apprehension. Why would someone wish to live in the former fear (vv. 18-21) when the latter delight was available (vv. 22- 24)? This appears to be the primary challenge thrust forward by today's passage. It can be re-issued to every Christian group by tapping into the spiritual obsessions that drive people to ritualistic behaviors out of superstitious fears when the great freedom of life in the forgiving presence of God is available through Jesus.
Luke 13:10-17
Over the entrance of the famed Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City is this inscription: "For of the Most High cometh healing." Nice words, but one wonders how they temper the minds of those who walk beneath them. Today's gospel reading shows Jesus probing the mystery of unbelief in the face of divine healing with those who witnessed his explicit miraculous touch.
Healing is a strange thing. The most obvious wounds and sores are not necessarily the most deadly. Even where doctors attack the traumas of the flesh, they often say that no true healing can take place until the mind and spirit and soul desire restoration. Thomas Moore's well-known hymn reflects that thought:
Come, you disconsolate, where'er you languish;
come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel.
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;
earth has no sorrows that heaven cannot heal.
"Gypsy Smith," a widely touted evangelist earlier last century, preached a powerful sermon on healing based on an incident from his own childhood. His people worked the fields of hops near Tunbridge, England. One day, a force of fifty people finished one section and boarded a horse-drawn wagon for transport to the next site. The wagon overflowed with people singing and laughing. But as they crossed a flooding stream on an old wooden bridge, a woman's sudden scream spooked the horses. When the wagon crashed against the side of the bridge, everyone was thrown into the raging waters. A young boy caught hold of a horse and then reached for his drowning mother's hand. Their arms flailed desperately, but the currents pulled her away to death.
At the mass funeral for 39 victims, crowds gathered in humbling numbers. Over the drone of words of mourning and hope, the boy who had lost his mother crawled into the gaping grave, hugged her casket and cried: "Mother, Mother! I tried to save you! I did all a man could do to save you, but you would not let me."
Gypsy Smith called his sermon "The Savior of All" and told how another Son reaches with hands of mercy for others who are drowning, and he does not let them down. This is the impact of Jesus' healing in today's passage. But, like the chiseled inscription over the New York hospital, it can be ignored or misunderstood or denied. And that is where the real test of divine medicine and human need intersect.
Application
They should not be used often, but every now and again sentimental poems like Myra Brooks Welch's The Touch of the Master's Hand can be very effective. It creates a picture and sets a mood, and often connects with a particular moment in each life when there was a clear and strong sense of the divine touch.
Alternative Application
Jeremiah 1:4-10. Both Jeremiah's calling and the unique healing of the woman in the gospel story can seem quite distant to the average person in our services today. But the story behind Hebrews and the images presented in the epistle reading are directly applicatory to every community in virtually every time. It might be well to focus more extensively on that passage, and then develop a Joshua-like covenant renewal challenge (see Joshua 24) with which to conclude the message.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 71:1-6
Martin Luther wrote it. Many have sung it lustily on Sunday morning. "A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing!" Conjuring up God in this militaristic fashion gives some people pause. They see a fort bristling with weaponry and with armed soldiers at the ready. But this is not a fort in the sense that we may wish to use it for attack. It is a fort in the sense of a place of safety. "A rock of refuge."
It is a powerful thing indeed to conjure up images of a God who is a location of safety, a sanctuary for body and spirit. And for many this vision of God is operative. But perhaps it wouldn't hurt to take this understanding of the holy and see if it might go a little further. What would happen if the idea of refuge, of safety, of sanctuary was applied to the communities that are founded and built to worship and honor this God?
What if our local church communities were a "rock of refuge"? What if every church community committed itself to a Trinitarian concept of sanctuary?
This tripartite formula would first include the church as sanctuary for the spirit. In this sense, our communities would be a safe place for people to become spiritually vulnerable so that they might stretch and grow into discipleship. The second sense of sanctuary would involve church as sanctuary for the heart. In this portion of our formula, people would be safe from criticism and ridicule; safe from wagging tongues and angry spirits. The last piece of this new Holy Trinity would be the notion of church as a sanctuary for the body. This means that the church pledges to keep people physically safe: no physical harm or abuse of any kind.
Such a fortress would be novel in society. There aren't very many places where people are safe in spirit, safe in their hearts, and physically safe all at the same time. Perhaps a beginning could be had in local churches. A covenant of sanctuary could be designed that would commit everyone in the church community to conduct themselves in a manner that would keep everyone safe.
Then, not only could we view our God as a safe haven, a rock, and a refuge, we could also create such safety within the folds of the communities that God has called us to build together.
